Honor and Betrayal : The Untold Story of the Navy Seals Who Captured the "Butcher of Fallujah"-and the Shameful Ordeal They Later Endured (9780306823091) (16 page)

The main formation of the in-going platoon was of paramount importance because it would almost certainly involve splitting the force and walking in with two columns behind the SEALs who were taking point, as they would be out in front, calling in.

This was because, despite the slender nature of the intel they possessed, they were confident that the main frontal defense of the place
faced southwest, the direction in which the SEALs would be approaching the site, and the perimeter was too wide to hit without slamming both ends, where there may be guard towers.

Thus, they swiftly agreed that the right-hand assault force, led by Matt McCabe, would move forward from the helicopter in single file behind recce man Eric, who would be out front testing the ground all the way in.

Immediately behind Matt would be the five ISWAT, pleasant enough combat troops but likely to panic under fire and possibly run for their lives, especially if they found out who the target was. Their actions would not fit precisely into standard SEAL conduct in the face of the enemy.

The tail of Matt's column would walk adjacent to three heavily armed SEALs close up, ready to run forward into assault formation at the first sign of trouble.

Bravo, the left-hand column, would be led by the mighty Petty Officer Rob, with an identical lineup behind him. Jon Keefe would be the recce man on the other side, leading the way for column two and heavily armed, picking his way through the dark desert out in front. He would communicate constantly with Rob and the chief comms operator, Petty Officer Sam, who would be standing in for Matt, the Alpha Team leader.

Between the two columns on the forward march to the al-Qaeda compound would be Carlton Milo Higbie IV (“Carl” to his buddies), marching along with Sam and the mission's forward commanding officer, Lieutenant Jimmy.

The SEALs would be ready to take on anything, no doubt about that. But it was the unknown factor that was so troublesome. They had no idea how big a defensive force they would meet, how well armed and prepared it would be, and how much of an early warning the terrorists would receive—if any.

Worse yet, the Team 10 TOC may not be able to find out, which would mean, inevitably, that Echo Platoon may have to get down and fight it out in the pitch-black desert at least an hour before the Quick Reaction Force (QRF) could even possibly arrive.

If they had to, they could summon their own three Seahawks, capable of carrying Hellfire-guided missiles and heavy machine guns. However, that would provide ample time and diversion for Al-Isawi to make his escape. The last thing Matt and his men wanted was an uproar, which would negate the purpose of the entire mission.

But as the dying days of August passed, one issue stayed solid: Camp Schwedler's “Deep Throat” remained certain of Al-Isawi's whereabouts. On the morning of September 2 Al-Isawi would be right where the informer had stated on August 24—hiding out in that mysterious al-Qaeda “barracks” deep in the Al Anbar Desert.

Team 10's preparations never missed a beat. As leader, Matt did a lot of the legwork, coordinating the finest details, assisting with the communications, and working with Eric on the best route in after they disembarked the Seahawks.

On Tuesday afternoon, September 1, the three SH-60 Seahawks arrived on the landing zone (LZ) at Camp Baharia. They were flown from TQ Air Base and would each carry eight men minimum into the operations zone. The pilots were immediately presented with a thorough briefing inside the ready room at Schwedler.

The helicopters were each armed with an M-240 machine gun and a GAU-17 Alpha, which fires six thousand rounds per minute. All mounted helicopter machine guns were equipped with infrared lasers for night operations. During flight and on landing the helicopter's door gunners would be on red alert.

The Seahawks, though capable of cruising at twelve thousand feet, would fly extremely low on this mission, cruising into the zone at approximately 160mph across the desert. Al-Qaeda defenses would not detect the SEALs flying in low. All SEAL operators would be equipped with night-vision goggles during the flight, as would the pilots and copilots.

Throughout the day the air crew was acquainted with every detail of the mission. As departure time approached, the pilots, copilots, and load masters knew everything there was to know, right down to which way the nose of the helicopter would point when they touched down in the desert. In addition they were given their own
battle plan, being told precisely how to attack if Carl called them in for an emergency.

They were also fully briefed with exact details of the escape plan—the three-mile journey across the sand toward the al-Qaeda compound, landing, keeping the engines running, keeping everything prepared for the fastest possible getaway, plus the evacuation of any wounded. And, of course, transporting the HVI who would, by then, hopefully be securely handcuffed and still breathing.

The checklist of equipment was impressive. The heavy-duty gear of the breacher was paramount—the sledgehammer, the bolt cutters, the crowbar, the explosive charges. In this case, the SEALs who would lead the two assault columns, Matt on the right and Rob to his left, would both assume the duties of breacher, leading the guys in just as soon as they reached the entry points. These two, who would walk in with the high explosive, designed and constructed all the charges personally.

The heavy machine guns and their ammunition belts had to be loaded aboard. All the M-4 rifles were silenced, and sniper rifles were also taken, just in case Al-Isawi made a break for it and had to be stopped. They took hand grenades, “flash-bang” grenades, which made an unimaginable noise, as they had been specifically designed to frighten people so much that the sound would stun them temporarily. The special disposable zip cuffs the Teams used on all al-Qaeda prisoners were included with each man's gear.

Every SEAL took his combat knife and Sig Sauer pistol as Petty Officer Sam supervised the communications equipment, personally packing the heavy comms radio he would carry into the zone. He conducted his tests in company with Matt and Rob, the men who would walk at the head of each column and to whom Sam's calm voice might represent the difference between life and death if the men from Echo Platoon came under heavy fire.

For this mission they would take an experienced naval medical practitioner because they would all be operating so far from home base and emergency procedures in the middle of the desert may be required for anyone who was badly hurt. This was in addition to the regular
morphine, bandages, and wound dressings that accompany every SEAL operation.

The full medical supply would be carried in the lead helicopter. Their SEAL medical expert, Eric, would go into the zone with the assault Team, accompanied by hospital corpsman 1st Class Paddy, a non-SEAL but a hugely respected and experienced paramedic.

Paddy was also required to stay close to the assault teams and could not be left behind in the comparative safety of the waiting helicopters. That al-Qaeda redoubt may very well become a lethal battle zone, and the presence of both medics, with full equipment, in the heart of any firefight may be critical. Not to put too fine a point on it—life and death.

Rob, leading column two on the walk in, was responsible for the limited data they had for identifying the HVI. He had a small file of photographs and a minibiography containing a description that everyone needed to study:
remarkably tall for an Iraqi, six feet two inches, of slim build
.

The pictures were not great, but they were adequate. Al-Isawi would be recognizable mostly by the twisted scowl on his face, which was probably how he looked when he hanged the burned bodies of the Americans from the old bridge at Fallujah five years previously.

But the key to positive identification (POSIDENT) was that stubby little finger on his left hand. “The guy with the stunted pinkie,” as Matt somewhat graphically observed. “That's our target. Because that can't change.”

At 2330 hours on Tuesday night, September 1, Echo Platoon was driven out to the three Seahawks that stood silently on the LZ beyond Camp Schwedler. It took less than ten minutes for the twenty-five men to embark. And before the turbo engines rendered the entire place too deafening for conversation, the CO issued one last, somewhat dire warning: “Gents,” he said, “stay sharp, and expect a firefight.”

At which point the pilots started those big turbo engines, virtually at the midnight hour, and they climbed away from the base to their cruising height. But as soon as they left the lights and the traffic behind and reached the desert, they slipped down to the lowest altitude at
which Matt or Jon had ever flown—about seventy-five feet above the ground.

And at that height the Navy pilots accelerated to their 168mph cruising speed and raced through the darkness, SEALs with assault rifles sitting in each doorway, feet dangling outside, and strapped in, left and right. In the lead helicopter Matt was peering through his green-tinted night-goggles when he saw up ahead a hard black line in the desert floor.

At least he thought it was a hard black line, but it was harder than that. “Holy shit!” breathed the Echo Team leader,
“TELEPHONE WIRES!”

And he yelled at the top of his lungs, futilely against the howl of the turbos:
“BANK RIGHT!
...
CLIMB RIGHT NOW!”

He recalled, “I doubt that I called it, the pilot would have done it anyway. But that Seahawk lurched sideways and up. I nearly fell out, and I saw the wires pass right under us.

“The other two helos were staggered at the left echelon, a couple of hundred yards apart, and they climbed too, over the wires. That would have done it, right? If we'd all turned a cartwheel in the middle of the desert and ended up upside down on the sand! Guess we'd planned for every crisis except that—getting brought down by the local phone company.”

Regardless, they pressed on, with the huge Seahawk rotors swirling up a sandstorm below them as they hurtled above the flat wilderness of Iraq, where not even Bedouin tribes spend much time these days.

Staring at the charts in the TOC was one thing. But out here in the real world, where it's really happening, none of the SEALs could dismiss the thought that somewhere down below them in the darkness some tribesman was leaning against his camel and phoning Al-Asawi: “Sir, I have just witnessed three of those American airplanes with no wings flying right over my goatherds, and they're heading straight for you ...”

Worse things have happened. One of the great dreads of US Special Forces involved with the War on Terror has always been betrayal by local people, who almost all have cell phones. It was three mountain
goat herders who finished Operation Red Wings in Afghanistan in 2005, in the worst day ever for a US Black Operation.

Everyone learned from that, and these pilots transporting Echo Platoon were taking a few wide sweeps, not making a dead straight line for the al-Qaeda compound. Nonetheless, these tribesmen are sure footed and enormously cunning, and they know this land better than any Westerner could ever understand.

Matt and his men may have been well under the radar, but they sure as hell were not above suspicion, not to some desert nomad being scared half to death by six turbo-shaft engines screaming above his head in the middle of the night, shattering the quiet of these biblical lands.

None of the doorway gunners saw anything for the next twenty-five minutes, at which point the pilots assessed they were “ten klicks out”—that's military speak (one klick equals one thousand meters or one kilometer—or .62 of a mile).

So the pilot now assessed they were 6.2 miles out from the target zone. He immediately dialed down the engines, slowing for the landing, and everyone heard the scream of the rotors subside and the so-familiar sound of a Navy helicopter coming into a flight deck, the turbo's lower-tone
BOM-BOM-BOM
.

Carefully they edged down toward the sand, with the pilots letting the landing wheels gently touch down on the surprisingly hard surface before releasing the full eight-ton weight of the Seahawk to settle on the desert floor. In that instant Matt and his gunners hit the release button and charged out of the helicopters, M-4 rifles ready to spit fire.

They took up defensive formation, armed to the teeth, surrounding the aircraft. Any enemy making any kind of advance on those Navy helicopters had approximately four seconds to live. The on-board machine gunners were at their posts, fingers on the trigger until the helicopters took off, rising instantly in the same split second the last man vacated the aircraft and took formation.

Out there on the sand, for several minutes, no one moved, the dust died down, and the night seemed to grow darker. The navigation Team, led by Petty Officer Eric, went into a huddle, checking compass bearing, GPS, maps, and diagrams. Jason and Rob, who would both
walk in column two, listened carefully as their communications controller, Carl (call-sign Hammer Zero-Two), tuned into their close air support, which was currently flying a couple of miles above them (they hoped).

This was Boeing's AC-130/U Gunship, known in the trade as Spooky, a one hundred-foot long, heavily armed warplane with four turbo-prop engines. It's capable of swooping in from nowhere and raking surgical fire into a target from its side-firing weapons, all of which are integrated with sophisticated sensor, navigation, and fire-control systems.

The sight of Spooky coming in for the kill is extremely bad news for all illegal combatants who might have raised a hand or a gun against the United States of America. The AC-130 packs an enormous amount of firepower that would crush and devastate any enemy.